I leant upon a coppice gate, When Frost was spectre-gray, And Winter's dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day. The tangled bine-stems scored the sky Like strings of broken lyres, And all mankind that haunted nigh Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to me The Century's corpse outleant, Its crypt the cloudy canopy, The wind its death-lament. The ancient pulse of germ and birth Was shrunken hard and dry, And every spirit upon earth Seemed fervorless as I.

At once a voice arose among The bleak twigs overhead, In a full-hearted evensong Of joy illimited. An aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small, With blast-beruffled plume, Had chosen thus to fling his soul Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings Of such ecstatic sound Was written on terrestrial things Afar or nigh around, That I could think there trembled through His happy good-night air Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew, And I was unaware.

----------------------------------What was it in the water thenthat forged a breed of pop messiahsFrom underfed suburban ladsgrown up by gas convector fires?Skinny, pale, with poor dentitionActor, clothes-horse, pop musicianIn David’s case, all three in one,An odyssey which he’d begunin sixty watts of Bromley sun.----------------------------------When Ziggy sang and played guitarNo one, yet, had gone that farIn Sutton Coldfield, Aylesbury, Bucksand Sunderland they’d cheerThe brickies bellowed, “’Ello, ducks!”the dads asked, “Is ’e queer?Gets harder now to tell the boysfrom girls, with every year.”The critics, too, blew cold and hot.But critics do.Why would they not?----------------------------------The Seventies then bedded inin feather boa and satin fl areThe suburbs sat like Hamelinawaiting anthems on the airFrom some pied piper not yet heardto woo them with a magic word:the oddball kid, the bookish geekthe one their classmates labelled“freak”,Sequestered in their rooms all week.They’re captivated by his eyes“You’re not alone!” the Starmancries.----------------------------------Now of his band, what shall we say?The Spiders, not from Mars but HullWere best of any of their dayIf Kingston upon Hull, the namedid not roll off the tonguethe same,The Spiders seemed to play guitarsas if they really were from MarsNow all the teenage kookswho wentTo hear these boys from Hull– and KentRemember, late in middle-age,how Ziggy broke the gender cage.----------------------------------And when we dig his records outfrom hard-drives, iPods, racksor shelvesAnd shed a tear, we find the truthis also, that we mourn our youth.Immortal youth, its peerless lightthat twinkles in the ageless nightUntil we find how frail we areCrashing in the same old car.----------------------------------In Heddon Street in JanuaryThe phone-box now is goneWhere fans took pictures ofthemselvesOnce Ziggy had moved onWhere did they go, those slipsof boys?Grown up with steam trainsin their eyesAnd rockets in the Dan Dare skiesAbove the dingy terraced streetsof Britain after war?America, by any score, would seemsome kind of ShangrilaBest slap some lippy on, then, kidand bring your best guitar.America eats talent like a wolfdevours a lamb,With tenderising powder which canturn your mind to spam.That’s when you have to wrestlewith your inner Peter Pan.Then, if the boy stops swinging,he may just become a man.----------------------------------But even politicians cough,describing him as nice.They missed him at the kick-offnow they’re gagging for a slice.He helped bring down the Berlin Wallit’s said, young Bromley DaveFashion icon, futurist... and genius.Oh, behave!----------------------------------The ones who’ll really miss him,are the girls then in their teensRecalling that one weekday nighthe burst on to their screensInstantly monopolising all theirmagazinesPromoting moral panic fromSt Mawes to Milton KeynesThey won’t remember mourningany pop star in this wayAnd won’t know why they’reweeping in the middle of the day.He was Youth and he was Beautyhe was talented and cleverSo stunningly original and...They thought he’d live for ever.----------------------------------In Heddon Street in JanuaryThe sun falls on a plaqueLike an actor taking encoresin a Mayfair cul-de-sac.And here beside the doorwayare his flowers in a stackBut Ziggy Stardust’s nevercoming back.And all the worldly traffic mayresume its migraine rumbleWhile all the Babylonian showbizrumour mills can crumble.Let legend be his epitaphThe lily needs no gildingLadies and gentlemen...Mr Bowie’s left the building.

After comparing lives with you for years I see how I’ve been losing: all the while I’ve met a different gauge of girl from yours. Grant that, and all the rest makes sense as well: My mortification at your pushovers, Your mystification at my fecklessness— Everything proves we play in separate leagues. Before, I couldn’t credit your intrigues Because I thought all girls the same, but yes, You bag real birds, though they’re from alien covers.

Now I believe your staggering skirmishes In train, tutorial and telephone booth, The wife whose husband watched away matches While she behaved so badly in a bath, And all the rest who beckon from that world Described on Sundays only, where to want Is straightway to be wanted, seek to find, And no one gets upset or seems to mind At what you say to them, or what you don’t: A world where all the nonsense is annulled,

And beauty is accepted slang for yes. But equally, haven’t you noticed mine? They have their world, not much compared with yours, But where they work, and age, and put off men By being unattractive, or too shy, Or having morals—anyhow, none give in: Some of them go quite rigid with disgust At anything but marriage: that’s all lust And so not worth considering; they begin Fetching your hat, so that you have to lie

Till everything’s confused: you mine away For months, both of you, till the collapse comes Into remorse, tears, and wondering why You ever start such boring barren games —But there, don’t mind my saeva indignatio: I’m happier now I’ve got things clear, although It’s strange we never meet each other’s sort: There should be equal chances, I’d’ve thought. Must finish now. One day perhaps I’ll know What makes you be so lucky in your ratio

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